Save the Orphan Lenses

Micro Four Thirds cameras, like the new Olympus PEN E-P3, let you use classic, orphan lenses to take great pictures. I recommend both.

I haven't written much about cameras lately, since the incremental changes have not been that interesting. But I do have to comment on the new Micro Four Thirds, mirrorless PEN E-P3 from Olympus. I seriously like this camera. It's not so much that it's leaps and bounds above anything else in terms of 12MP imaging technology, but that it uses a markedly faster autofocus mechanism that gives the camera an incredible feel.v

Olympus documents the E-P3's autofocus as the fastest in the industry, and there is virtually no shutter lag even with autofocus turned on. The camera just seems so solid. It's pretty much my camera of choice, because it simply feels great.

If you shot with Leica Rangefinders 20 plus years ago, you know what a camera is supposed to feel like. The E-P3 has that exact same feel, and that is with autofocus turned on.

That said, the camera has lot of other niceties which should be discussed. One of the reasons I like the Micro Four Thirds format and this Olympus, in particular, is because I am not a full-time, professional photographer or someone pretending to be one. I have a budget that does not allow me to buy a group of new and expensive lenses. I have a lot of old, classic, killer lenses from my days shooting Canon, Minolta, Pentax, and Nikon during the film era.

For one thing, Micro Fourth Thirds cameras with an adapter can pretty much mount any lens you want. One lens I like to shoot with is the classic Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens, which can produce a stunning image. I also have some gorgeous Nikon lenses that I can mount and use.

The key to success with these old lenses is the ease in which you can manually focus with the E-P3. You push a button and get an enlarged image that you can easily focus on. It's fast. And the large LCD on the camera is so bright that even with the sun directly on the screen, the image is visible. Until recently, that was a problem with most cameras.

You set your aperture by hand, based on the type of picture you want to take (shallow depth of field or not) and then set the camera dial to "A" for aperture priority. This means the camera will set the shutter speed necessary for a perfect exposure. It's now semi-automatic. You do not have to go to full manual-mode with alien lenses. You can now shoot away, and the camera will adjust the shutter as necessary, without further user fiddling.

I often like to set the aperture myself anyway, so that difference only slightly affects me.

This brings me to a feature of the newer Olympus cameras that cannot be overlooked by anyone on a budget. The image stabilization is built into the body. It's the CMOS imager that is stabilized, not the lens optics. And while some may debate the superiority of full, gyroscopic, lens stabilization, this does solve the problem of having to use older, collectible lenses when you want some form of stabilization other than the universally derided "digital" stabilization.

I have shot a lot of pictures out of a small prop plane using the Olympus camera with this form of stabilization and captured some great photos. Take a look at this picture shot through a Plexiglass window with an E-520 while flying over Seattle. I have taken this shot numerous times, with all sorts of unstabilized cameras, and they have all been messy.

You can still get a lot of old and interesting lenses on Craigslist and at various swap meets, but because of Fourth Thirds adapters and the fact that people like me have figured out that these old lenses can still be used, most people are not giving them away like they may have done five years ago. That's a shame, but you can still find some goodies here and there for very little money. I picked up the classic Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 for $50. The new lens equivalent with autofocus from Olympus is $300.

You should know that the economics of these cameras is dependent on selling lenses. I'm probably not doing the company any favors by extolling the camera as great for using orphan lenses, but it cannot be ignored. The Fourth Thirds system is essentially made for this purpose, as long as you are in a position to deal with manual focusing. The irony with this particular camera is that its extremely quick, autofocus mechanism thus gets underutilized.

To throw Olympus lenses a bone, I will say that if you compare many of the old classics to today's best lenses (specifically for these cameras), today's lenses are decidedly sharper with better color and contrast. And I should mention that the E-P3 does come with a great little 14-42mm kit lens that has been upgraded from earlier versions of the camera. This lens is probably all that most people will ever need.

This whole arena of orphan lens usage is under-discussed and under-tested. Anyone with some Photoshop skills can easily improve most images, especially if they are shot in RAW format. The E-P3 can shoot a simultaneous RAW+JPEG image. This allows you to use the JPEGs for indexing, blogs, or to pass around as snapshots and open the RAW when you want to seriously adjust the picture.

So if you are looking for a compact, full-frame camera that just feels great when you shoot it, go look at the E-P3. I highly recommend it, especially if you have old, orphan lenses you want to revisit. You won't regret it.

John Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the host of the weekly TV video podcast CrankyGeeks. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, Forbes Digital, PC World, Barrons, MacUser, PC/Computing, Smart Business and other magazines and newspapers. Former editor and consulting editor for Infoworld. Has appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, Vancouver Sun. Was on the start-up team for CNet TV as well as ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) was host of Silicon...
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